All Forum Posts by: Alfred Litton

I'll echo what Kyle McCaw says about the shortage of quality professional contractors in WF.  I think many are drawn to bigger markets where theres more money to be made. Most in WF are your Chuck in a truck sort of fellows.

@Chris Mason Thanks for the info. I should have clarified. By "big ones," I meant the ones that are very prominent or well known in the DFW area.

Hello All! Just wondering if everyone else is running into what I've been running into. Called a couple of mortgage brokers I've used before (big ones) to see about a cash-out refi on a property so that I could extract the equity and purchase an additional SFH. Basically, three firms told me the same thing: They simply have no way of doing investment loans right now because no one wants them. "Can't get a rate" on purchases or refinances at all, which they attribute to institutions not being interested in owning those loans. Something about Fannie and Freddie limiting the number of investment loans for institutions?

Maybe I'm not understanding them correctly.

Anybody else seeing this? Essentially, if I understand it properly, the loans "can't catch a bid." That's weird and . . . a little unnerving.

The values were there a couple of years ago, but not as much now. They just voted to build two new (expensive) high schools and athletic complexes, so taxes are going to go up substantially. I'm invested there but not looking there as much as places like Tyler, Sherman, Abilene, etc.

I can tell you that, in future years, I will be scrutinizing future applicants far, far more carefully than I even do now (which is VERY carefully already). 

And I will NEVER rent to someone who took advantage of landlords by simply not paying rent when they otherwise COULD have. 

I can't speak for Memphis, but I live 2 hrs from OKC and have been interested in that market for some time. Every time I look closely, however, I'm very surprised by just how much SFH rental inventory is on the market. Seems like a LOT of competition to me. Maybe that's changed in the last couple of months, but I was stunned to see how much there was back in Jan.

The bigger lesson we should all learn from this episode is that small real estate investors simply don't have the political pull or the voice we need to make sure our interests are heard. No one lobbies for us. This has exposed the fact that we have no muscle with bureaucrats and lawmakers, unlike, say, the banking or home construction lobbies. 

Just came across floodfactor.com, a site the purports to give you (without having to look up FEMA materials in every zip code) what the flood risks are for a given property. Anybody have any experience with this site? Is it reliable?

@Kevin Koone Wow! Thanks for the tips. Also, WPS. Go Hogs!

@Cameron Moore In fact, I just got an email from one of the agents saying she's going to try that route. I didn't think of that, but it's a good idea! We'll see if that works out. Thanks for educating me!!